24 Aug 2007

Leaving a light bulb on

Someone has left a light bulb onin the staircase of our block of flatsshining bright day and night

two days ago there were frantic effortsto find out who had forgotten to switch it offthe person has gone off travelingand now its been over five days

in the age of climate changei set out out calculatehow much energyhas been wasted uptill now

BSES tells me a 100W bulb consumes about 0.1 units per hourand using that figurei guess the we have already used up about 20 rupees of electricity (100 hours)

in fact if the bulb had been a CFL onethe savings would have been up to five timesbut then leaving it on throughout the day is still a stupid idea

how many times do we leave light bulbsor other devices on in the houseand it sneaks up into our electricity billat the end of the month

TERI has a good (but complicated)energy calculatorfor your houseand since the programme calculatesthe usage in each roomyou can use it monitor your consumption patternsand even reduce it

the flip side of this bulb staring at useach time we down the flight of stairsis that it is an excellent advert for thebulb company(although in Turkey, I am sure theElection Commission would pass an order to put out the bulb)